Hello from Baie Phaeton,
Well it's been a good seven months since our last update. We left Tahiti on September 2nd, 2009 and flew home. We spent six months in the USA, mostly in the Monterey Bay area of California. Kristin and grandson Aidan live in Monterey and we house-sat in Aptos so were close enough to commute and got to see them a lot. David and Jenny flew out from Cleveland and Charlotte (NC) for Christmas and we had a grand old time at Kristin's itsy bitsy apartment.
Mary got involved with the Peninsula Scottish Fiddlers, did some gigs, met some great people and in general had a great time. We paid a short visit to Texas and some property we own there, saw our accountant and went bicycling on a great bike path in Austin. The month of February found us in San Diego buying – what else – boat parts and supplies.
We arrived back here on March 2nd at 11pm and by the time we got the car rental, checked through Customs and Immigration and arrived at our hotel for what was left of the night – it was 1:30 AM local time or 3:30 AM San Diego time. It had been raining but stopped just long enough for us to find the hotel. A wall of humidity was greeted us.
We drove to the boat, an hour away (40 km), in the rain; and for the next 3 ½ days all it did was rain. Buckets and buckets and buckets! We found the boat fine but full of mildew. We extended our hotel reservation another night just to give us enough time to clean out enough of the mildew to set up house keeping. For ten days we cleaned mildew. The sun came out on March 7th and the weather started to change – after all it was getting close to Fall here (March 21st).
We were in the Marina here in Baie Phaeton. It is considered the best Hurricane hole in all of Polynesia. Hurricanes rarely occur here – only when and sometimes if it is an El Nino year. Well this year was an El Nino and Hurricane Oli did come awfully close – passing just south of Tahiti. The winds only got up to 50 kts (it takes 64 to be considered hurricane strength). But of course that was not all. This year Tahiti experienced two tsunamis – one from Samoa and the other from Chile. The water rose and fell 20 cm from the Chile quake. But the boat did fine – just lots of mildew. Just to add to the experience though, the summer here was the hottest on record for the last 52 years and one of the rainiest on record. The heat cooked the glass in about half of our outdoor instruments which will make navigating more interesting for sure.
We spent three weeks cleaning mildew, doing boat chores, and adapting to the heat, humidity, bugs and prices. At the end of the first week a local "marina cat" adopted us and welcomed herself to our meal leftovers. In return she slept on board, left us more fleas, and killed a wandering rat one night and of course left it for dining pleasure the next morning. The marina had two identical restrooms but only the "hommes" was ever open and unlocked. Each contained a shower, a toilet (with no seat) and a sink. But they did have hot water. We'd shower off the sweat each night. Two nights Mike had to share the shower with a 6 inch land crab who had wondered in under the broken door bottom and did not like getting clean with fresh water. He kept aiming his one big claw at Mike the whole time.
After having the boat damaged in six places during our haulout in Guaymas, we were very worried about coming out again here. But the staff here really know what they are doing with catamarans and all went fine on March 23rd when we finally came out to have the bottom painted. The last bottom paint job in El Salvador had been a big disappointment, as the bottom paint came off just days after being put on. Eric, Mary's nephew was with us for two weeks, dove in the water and came up asking why the bottom of our boat was red on the sides and white on the bottom. So for the next nine months we'd dive on the bottom every 10 days scrapping off barnacles and waiting for the next haulout.
All went well with this haulout. The French love sailing so they know what they are doing but when you work 7 ½ hour days and 4 ½ days a week things can take a while to get accomplished! We found damage in the kick-up rudders, damage in the daggerboard, and bridge deck paint from the Mexico job falling off. All was fixed and we were back in the water on March 6th. But we only went 8 meters – 'cause we had to wait for the finishing touches to the daggerboard. At 9am Tahiti time, on March 8th, we officially left the marina and tied up to a mooring ball where we put up the screecher, put on the dingy outboard and tested out the water maker. So basically, it ended up taking six weeks to get the boat ready for another season of sailing and this is only two weeks more than what we told everyone (never really believing it ourselves of course).
Of course no story of Tahiti is complete without mentioning the cost of doing business here. Our radar was fixed locally while we were gone and the total cost for the fix was more than the cost of a new one. It included 26% in local taxes!! And that is with a strong US dollar. We can tell the dollar has strengthened. A six pack of Budweiser that sold for $23.40 last August (and was the most expensive beer sold here) is now only $13.20 (and is now the cheapest beer sold here). Just couldn't bring ourselves to buy Budweiser though and bought a six pack of Heineken for $15 and have been savoring one beer every three days to make the six pack last! But real shocker was buying 16 gallons of gasoline and paying $91. Ouch!!
Our last hurdle is checking out of Tahiti via the port captain and being permitted to sail on to Moorea and then all the other islands. We anticipate a hard time of it, since we left and the boat didn't. Just might be too complicated for officialdom.
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